


The Muse

by thealphagate_archivist



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Action/Adventure, Adult Content, Episode Related, F/M, Missing Scene, Pre-Het, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-02-25
Updated: 2007-02-25
Packaged: 2019-02-01 22:12:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 10,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12713874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thealphagate_archivist/pseuds/thealphagate_archivist
Summary: O'Neill gets a gift and loses control (related story Nu)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Note from the archivists: this story was originally archived at [The Alpha Gate](https://fanlore.org/wiki/The_Alpha_Gate), a Stargate SG-1 archive, which began migration to the AO3 in 2017 when its hosting software, eFiction, was no longer receiving support. To preserve the archive, we began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in November 2017. We e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are this creator and it hasn't transferred to your AO3 account, please contact us using the e-mail address on [The Alpha Gate collection profile](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/thealphagate).

  
Author's notes: Related story - Nu  


* * *

A wall of sound -- intense and pulsing -- hit O’Neill’s ears as he emerged from the vortex of aqua-tinted energy and his foot touched P3X531. “One giant step for mankind,” he mused, “this time to a beat.” O’Neill didn’t like it – well the music was nice and the scene stunning. But, threat assessment and any form of communication were difficult and that made him nervous.  
  
Captain Samantha Carter, Teal’C and Doctor Daniel Jackson, coming hot on his heels through the Star Gate, were equally stunned by the sound. The Gate stood at one end of a large plaza, surrounded by buildings, according to the Mobile Analytic Laboratory Probe (M.A.L.P.) images. This was the first contact with the people here, yet the pulsating crowd ignored SG-1 and the belching Gate.  
  
The scene was stunning. The plaza was a mass of swirling color, silks, bejeweled arms and legs, swinging hair as the local populace of P3X531 celebrated… something… apparently.  
  
Colonel Jack O’Neill stuck a finger in the ear equipped with an earpiece and tried to pick out the sound of Carter’s voice. He knew she was talking. Her lips were moving not three inches from his ear, but nothing… just lilting, rhythmic music.  
  
“It sounds middle-eastern,” he thought and shifted to hand signals, effectively ordering SG-1 out of the plaza to seek a quiet location away from the pulsating color and sound. “Weird how sometimes the M.A.L.P. missed these sorts of things,” O’Neill reflected as something like a Kemence, a narrow bowed instrument, droned out an exotic undulating tune that filled his mind. He liked it.  
  
“Nice counterpoint to the plink-plunking sounds of the Tar ,” he thought. “Kemence? Tar? I’m spending way too much time around Jackson!”  
  
Teal’C took point, Carter and Daniel were in the middle and O’Neill brought up the rear. They hugged the buildings that lined the plaza. Normally, he’d see trouble a mile away from that position. Normally there was something to be seen. Not this time.  
  
Even as the team moved away from the plaza and the Gate, the music swelled. Everything looked normal, but O’Neill was finding it increasingly difficult to concentrate and he didn’t really mind. The sound was mesmerizing, especially coupled with the flashing colors of the dancing crowd and pulsing vibrations he could feel coming through his boot soles from the ground and moving up through his legs into his belly and chest. It made him want to … move…  
  
Teal’c turned to see O’Neill standing stock-still, staring, far behind the rest of the team. When the Colonel started to move into the crowd, the big Jaffa instantly signaled to Carter, who turned and jogged back to the Colonel with Daniel Jackson tagging along.  
  
“Colonel?” Carter shouted, first into his ear and then into her vest-mounted microphone. “Colonel O’Neill?” O’Neill stared at her, squinting slightly as if trying to make out her words. Already, Teal’c and Daniel were beside her.  
  
“I think we need to abort,” Carter shouted first to an unresponsive O’Neill and then to Teal’c, who nodded his acknowledgement. “Grab the Colonel, something’s wrong,” Carter shouted, miming her orders to the rest of the team just to be sure. Together they maneuvered O’Neill back to the Gate. Daniel activated it, the wormhole formed, the liquid-blue energy of the Gate stabilized and they all stepped through.  
  
The Star Gate wormhole to terra firma was bone-numbingly cold. Even after several years of gate-travel the cold remained impressive to all Star Gate travelers from the Star Gate Control. Teal’c, who had joined SCG in order to liberate his home world of Chulak, seemed unaffected. But, trained as a Jaffa from his childhood, Teal’c was an exception.  
  
The effects of Gate travel wore off quickly on the other side, but suspended for a few moments the Team felt as if they’d never emerge into warmth and normalcy. Then, it passed and they staggered through in a more-or-less controlled freefall from indescribable sensations of passage through a wormhole to drab familiarity of the Gate Room deep beneath Cheyenne Mountain Military Complex outside of Colorado Springs. Carter shook off the effects of the transit and turned to O’Neill. He was blinking, shaking his head and had a finger in his ear, yawning broadly like an airline traveler trying to adjust pressure after a sudden descent. “Colonel? Are you OK?” she queried.  
  
O’Neill’s clear brown eyes looked down into hers. “Fine, Captain. Fine.” He seemed fine as General George Hammond, commanding General of the SGC, strode to the platform expecting an explanation for the aborted mission.  
  
“Colonel? What happened?” Hammond inquired.  
  
O’Neill turned and smiled. “Why nothing, General Hammond, nothing at all. We came, we saw, we conjectured.”  
  
Hammond nodded, taking this for the usual O’Neill wit, and let it go. “OK, debriefing in 15-minutes, people. We can get into details then.”  
  
O’Neill was already moving toward the door. “Yeah, he seems fine,” thought Carter. “It was probably a glitch in the communicators. I’ll check it out before the briefing,” and she headed for Engineering.  
  
Seventeen minutes later, Hammond sat drumming his fingers at the head of the conference table. Carter, Jackson and Teal’c shifted uneasily in their seats. O’Neill had not appeared.  
  
Captain Carter reviewed her report mentally. “The communicators apparently failed on P3X531. Upon examination her gear had checked out, as had Jackson’s and Teal’c’s. So,” Carter deliberated, “the problem is likely to be in the Colonel’s equipment.”  
  
It made sense that the problem would be found there. He’d been the one who seemed to experience most of the confusion. She’d not been able to check it out because O’Neill had vanished right after they returned. She planned to complete her analysis by checking it after the briefing. A drumming sound brought her out of her contemplation. It was the sound of an increasingly agitated General Hammond.  
  
Carter glanced at her field watch, “25-after the hour. Where's the Colonel? It isn’t like him to be late,” Carter thought. “Sarcastic, yes. Insubordinate? Sometimes. Late? Never.”  
  
***


	2. Chapter 2

Peeved, General Hammond rose, stalked to his office and spoke sharply into the telephone. Moments later an announcement rang through the SGC. “Colonel O’Neill, please report to the briefing room. Colonel O’Neill report to the briefing room, immediately.”  
  
Three minutes later, by Carter’s watch, O’Neill burst through the door, red-faced and flustered. “Sorry General,” he muttered as he flung his lanky frame into his customary chair.  
  
Hammond glared at him and ordered Carter to proceed, “If you please, Captain.”  
  
“Sir, SG-1 experienced communications problems almost immediately on P3X531. Colonel O’Neill directed us to exit the plaza by use of hand signals because our communications gear seemed to be on the blink.”  
  
Hammond looked puzzled. “Why did you need the gear at all?”  
  
Before Carter could reply, O’Neill interjected. “There was the most amazing music, General. I’ve never heard anything like it. It had a sort of middle-eastern flavor, but it was different somehow… The plaza was filled with sound and color and dance. It was unbelievable.”  
  
Carter, Teal’c and Daniel stared as O’Neill rhapsodized. “My God, he sounds like me,” thought Daniel.  
  
O’Neill’s eyes shone as he recounted the scene, “And the jewelry and attire of the local population was also very striking. It seemed as though the entire event was choreographed, somehow. It was very impressive… and really quite moving, Sir.”  
  
While SG-1 had gaped at O’Neill, Hammond had grown increasingly furious. Normally O’Neill was prompt, so he’d planned to let him off lightly for his tardiness. But, now he was wasting more time with this… odd…joke.  
  
“This is enough,” Hammond decided as he snapped, “Colonel O’Neill, I don’t usually mind your offbeat jokes. I like a sense of humor in my commanders. It is good for team morale and I find that people who enjoy humor are generally intelligent, sensitive and creative. But Colonel, this is way over the edge! You have crossed over from humor to … I don’t know what! I’ve had enough of it. You will sit there, Colonel, and be quiet while Captain Carter completes the briefing. Then, Sir we will have a private conversation. Captain, please continue.”  
  
Carter was blushing furiously for O’Neill as she continued. “General, as Colonel O’Neill … indicated… there was a lot of music and we were in the midst of a large crowd. So, he ordered us out of the plaza. On the way, however, communication became increasingly problematic. The Colonel fell behind… and when I was unable to communicate with him, I pulled the plug on the mission. We came directly back through the Gate. Since our return, I ran several diagnostics on the gear. It has checked out so far. But… I still need to test Colonel O’Neill’s communicator and earpiece.”  
  
Hammond’s face darkened, “You already checked the others?” Carter nodded, “Yes, sir.”  
  
“Then, why not the Colonel’s, Captain?”  
  
Carter looked uncomfortable, thinking “this has not been a good day for Colonel O’Neill,” she said, “Well, General, I missed the Colonel after we got back and there wasn’t much time before the briefing, so I thought I could complete my analysis after I saw him here.”  
  
“You missed the Colonel,” Hammond pressed the matter. He recognized all the signs of a subordinate covering for a superior officer. “Why was that?”  
  
“Well, I just couldn’t find him…” Carter stated lamely. “Dammit!” She thought, “I didn’t want to say that.”  
  
To her surprise, Hammond was looking kindly at O’Neill and asked him gently, “Where were you, Jack?”  
  
O’Neill smiled as he answered. “I went down to the Rec Room, sir. There are some excellent watercolors down there and I was checking out the technique.”  
  
Stunned, Daniel Jackson blurted the thought that was on everyone’s mind. “I never knew you like to paint, Jack!”  
  
O’Neill looked bemused. “I don’t.”  
  
***


	3. Chapter 3

Captain Carter and Daniel discussed the bizarre de-briefing as they walked down a maze of steel gray corridors toward Engineering. Hammond had concluded by gently ordering O’Neill to the Infirmary, asking Teal’c to accompany him as a thinly veiled means of keeping O’Neill under observation. Teal’c was one of the few people at SGC who could take on O’Neill in hand-to-hand combat and win. Also Hammond was confident that the big Jaffa would take special pains not to unduly injure his friend, if O’Neill’s strange behavior became irrational or dangerous and required physical restraint. It was a thought Hammond did not relish, but he was obliged to plan for all contingencies (to the extent possible in a facility like SGC).  
  
Carter intended to check O’Neill’s gear. Given his uncharacteristic behavior, she realized she was probably ruling out a possible explanation rather than finding the source. “But sometimes that’s the best Science can do,” Carter thought.  
  
Daniel Jackson walked alongside Carter on the way to his office where he hoped he could turn something up from Earth culture that might provide insights into the culture of P3X531. He was rattling on about “The Muse” as he walked.  
  
“You see, Sam,” Daniel expounded, “comparatively little ancient Greek music survives. Although the oldest examples date to the third century BCE, they are really fragments, at best. Most complete examples were composed in the Graeco-Roman period by Mesomedes, the court musician for Hadrian, who reigned between the years of 117 and 138, Common Era. Mesomedes was born in Crete but lived as a freedman of Hadrian.”  
  
Carter spun on Daniel, “What’s the point?”  
  
Daniel blinked with surprise. “Oh, sorry! The point is, I think, from what we saw of the culture on P3X531 that there are likely to be strong connections between the people of that world and Earth culture at the time and location of Mesomedes.”  
  
“And why is that?” Carter probed, realizing that she could never concentrate on her own train of thought while Daniel needed to bounce his ideas off someone … well, her.  
  
“Well, it is still just a hunch, but there are characteristics of the architecture, the jewelry and even the words to the songs we heard that remind me of that period. And if I am right and there is a connection, Jack’s behavior might be explained by an ancient song, the ‘Hymn to the Muse’ written by Mesomedes. The Greek translates something like this.”  
  
Daniel cleared his throat and chanted,  
  
“Oh Muse, Thou dear one, sing to me,  
Commence and order my song.  
Cool breezes blowing from Thy groves  
In-spire my breast and rouse my heart.  
  
Calliopeia Thou wise  
Principal of the Muses delightful,  
Thou too, wise mystery guide,  
Leto's child, Thou Delian Paean,  
Be propitious and stand by me.”  
  
Daniel concluded his recitation, looking expectantly at Carter. Getting only a blank stare, he tried to explain further, “’The Delian child of Leto’ is, of course, the Greek God Apollo, and ‘Paean’ refers to Him as Savior.”  
  
As Carter continued to look mystified, Daniel realized his half-formed thoughts were not yet ready for prime time. “Never mind, thanks Sam! I’ll be back to you when I can actually explain this!” Doctor Jackson disappeared down the hall leading to his office, intoning the “Hymn to the Muse” under his breath.  
  
Carter turned and continued toward Engineering. This was turning out to be a very strange day.  
  
***


	4. Chapter 4

Teal’c sat contemplating his friend and comrade-in-arms. After completing a physical exam at the Infirmary, Doctor Frazier had directed O’Neill -- and Teal’c as his keeper -- here to what she described as “an enriched creative environment.” Teal’c strongly suspected O’Neill was being studied like the creatures Carter referred to as “lab rats,” but O’Neill gave no sign of minding. It was curious to see O’Neill like this. He seemed calm, absorbed in fact, as he focused on the task before him – applying paint to a clean, white rectangle of canvas. Frazier, seconded by physicians and psychologists who normally dealt with battle trauma, family counseling or the occasional depression-case, watched in fascination.  
  
Doctor Janet Frazier had known Jack O’Neill for more than two years. In fact, after adopting Cassandra -- a youngster O’Neill had rescued from a village destroyed by the Goa’uld -- Janet had relied on O’Neill as a surrogate father figure for her adopted daughter. She thought back to their encounters off base. O’Neill had played with Cassandra, including drawing, coloring and messing around with finger paints. She didn’t recall the results. The point had always been Cassandra, not the art. Certainly it had not been anything like this.  
  
O’Neill was poised over the canvas, concentrating on it like a predator stalking prey. He was perfectly calm, even content, as his eyes and hands worked. “The results are extraordinary,” she thought. Although, she’d had little time for formal art study, Frazier had dated an accomplished painter for several wild months as a pre-med student. From what she could tell, O’Neill was better, far better and he’d been working for – Frazier glanced at her watch – one hour and twenty-three minutes, not including the half-hour of art appreciation he’d spent in the Rec Room earlier that day. What had happened to him on P3X531?  
  
Jack O’Neill knew he was being ‘observed’ by the ‘white-coats’ and that Teal’c was tagging along as Hammond’s generous attempt at a low-profile guard. “Strange that I don’t care,” he thought. Somehow what mattered at the moment to the exclusion of anything else was achieving the proper rendering of the light across the Temple of the Sun on P3X322. It had been breathe-taking when he’d seen it on a mission last month. He remembered the flutter in his heart as the light broke over the horizon, its rays catching in the towers of the temple like… “Like what?” At the time he’d kept his emotions to himself and directed the mission as he always did with efficiency, recognizing that distractions might cost lives. “Now, what would more white do along here?” He thought.  
  
As hours passed, observers trickled away or fell asleep. Still O’Neill painted deep into the night, buoyed by a sensation of the images passing through him from … somewhere beyond. At other moments it was as if another force directed his brush or he would hear a small, quiet voice whisper in his ear. Even Teal’c had fallen asleep, slumped on a stool in the corner, when O’Neill felt closure. It was done. He quietly placed his brush and paint on a table, stretched enormously and smiled. “It is well done,” the voice whispered. “Imagine that!” O’Neill mused.  
  
  
***


	5. Chapter 5

In another part of the SGC, Doctor Daniel Jackson was hearing a small, quiet voice, as well. It was telling him two things that he really didn’t want to hear.  
  
First, his plunge into in-depth research on the worship of “The Muse” only strengthened his conviction that Jack O’Neill was in serious trouble, possibly possessed by some form of … Jackson didn’t have a term for the force, aside from those in common usage … creativity, muse, inspiration. From what Jackson could tell the force was not Goa’uld-based. Nor was it any of the other parasitic or mechanical forms of control that SG-teams had encountered to date – Doctor Frazier had ruled out nannites and other electromagnetic devices that might have been implanted in O’Neill in the brief span when he stood apart from the rest of SG-1.  
  
That was the good news.  
  
The bad news was that all available information on the Muse indicated that it is a compelling, irresistible force … of great power. The story of “The Muse” in Earth culture was largely the story of brilliant lives destroyed – Van Gogh, Nietzsche… and O’Neill? Daniel shuddered, recalling a quote from Aristotle; “There was never a genius without a tincture of madness.”  
  
Second, the answer was not here on Earth. Jackson heard the small quiet voice whispering, “You have to go back.”  
  
***


	6. Chapter 6

As dawn broke over the Colorado Mountains, Jack O’Neill sprinted along a trail to the summit where Cheyenne Mountain reached into the rarified air over 7,000 feet above sea level. His security clearance was intact and he’d left Teal’c slumbering deep in the bowels of the mountain. O’Neill felt alive and free. He felt the wind on his skin, smelled the turpines emitted by the deep evergreen forests and, when he broke through the tree line two miles past the security gate at the end of the road, he felt he’d touched something sublime.  
  
There was a phrase, a scrap of melody working through his mind as he ran and a lightness of spirit that he’d never known in his adult life. The melody took shape and coursed in time to the blood pounding in his veins and the wind on his skin. Something wonderful waited ahead, he knew, it called to him from the summit.  
***  
  
When Teal’c awoke he reported O’Neill’s absence to General Hammond immediately. “I have failed you General Hammond,” he said with a respectful bow. Hammond realized there was nothing to say to the Jaffa. Any small words of comfort he could offer would only reinforce the failure and probably insult Teal’c’s honor. “It’s my own fault,” thought Hammond. “Teal’c should have had backup.” To the big man before him, Hammond snapped an order. “Well, let’s find him. Have Carter check the computers, he must be somewhere in the complex.” Teal’c bowed and left, honoring Hammond for understanding the code befitting a leader of warriors.  
  
At Teal’c’s request, Carter quickly ascertained O’Neill’s movements. “Let’s see,” his pass activated the door to his quarters at 0300 hours. Fifteen minutes later he entered the library where he… accessed the music library tapes – Leo Kottke? After two hours his pass was used again to … Oh-My-Gosh… Teal’c he’s left the complex. The computer shows he went through the last security gate, going up the Mountain at 0513 hours.”  
  
When Teal’c reported to Hammond, there were some decisions to be made. First, O’Neill must be collected, preferably with a minimum of fuss. Second, Hammond needed a briefing from Frazier, Carter and Jackson on the results of their research. Almost twenty-four hours had passed since O’Neill returned with his new passion for the Humanities. Hammond had a niggling feeling that, if this thing were to be reversed somehow, it would need to be soon. The General thought a moment and ordered the remnants of SG-1 to the briefing room with a request to Doctor Frazier to join them there as soon as possible. Hammond hesitated to send anyone but SG-1 after the Colonel. Maybe he’d go himself, once he had things sorted out. O’Neill would just have to look after himself for a while longer, while Hammond got the lay of the land.  
  
##  
  
O’Neill stood on the knife-edge of the summit as morning washed across the mountain tops and sliced across the valleys below in long diagonal slices of gold. As he stood, heart pounding in the cold mountain air there was a moment of … “What?” He couldn’t say it with words. He closed his eyes and grasped the moment. He held it, captured it and then turned to jog back to SGC to find a way to make the music he’d seen.  
  
##  
  
Hammond had called together SG-1 and Doctor Frazier for an early morning meeting on O’Neill’s situation. They were gathered in the briefing room. Everyone looked serious and a bit strained, in part, Hammond thought because O’Neill was not there to relieve the tension with a quip or a feeble joke.  
  
“Colonel O’Neill has undergone a dramatic change in a very few hours,” reported Doctor Frazier. “That alone is cause for concern in a man in his position, of course. In addition, I’ve reviewed the computer records of his activities. He hasn’t slept in 24-hours. Research indicates that sleep deprivation of only a few days can result in psychosis and in a matter of extended deprivation can lead to death. Obviously, I will intervene if necessary. Right now he is in his quarters.” Frazier steeled herself. “General, I recommend that Colonel O’Neill be relieved of duty pending resolution of this … condition or at least a better understanding of what has happened to him.”  
  
Hammond sighed and nodded, “I concur Doctor, with great regret. I’ve relieved Colonel O’Neill of duty. I’d planned to stop by his quarters and talk to him about it. He came back on his own?” Teal’c nodded. “Well that’s one less thing to worry about. So Doctor, what is our next step?”  
  
“Actually, General, I think the next step should be left up to Colonel O’Neill,” she replied. Seeing that Hammond looked doubtful, she expounded. “In some cases of obsessive behavior the patient experiences spontaneous recovery after a certain point of … well ‘super-saturation’ might be the word for it. By allowing the person to complete the task he is driven to perform, the drive is sometimes satisfied.”  
  
Hammond continued to give Frazier the fish-eye. “What are the chances in this case?” Frazier shook her head, “I have no way of knowing that, General. I’m sorry.” Hammond had his answer.  
  
“So we move to the next question. What happened to Colonel O’Neill yesterday, people?” Hammond looked from one face to the other. Daniel shifted uneasily, so Hammond gave him an opening. “Yes, Doctor Jackson?”  
  
“General, I think we need to return to the planet to find out what happened.” Carter had been sitting on her hands, but she’s right behind Daniel on this idea. “I concur, Sir. I sent a MALP through this morning and the plaza appears quiet and relatively empty. There are just a few passers-by, like the set of transmissions received before our mission. Whatever was happening when we arrived yesterday, it seems to be over now. I’d like to lead the team back to speak to those people. It might be the only way we will find out how to help the Colonel.”  
  
Hammond nodded. “Alright Captain, Doctor Jackson, Teal’c. You have permission for a return mission to P3X531.” Hammond turned to Frazier, “Thank you for your insights into this problem Doctor.”  
  
Frazier interrupted, “Permission to go along, General? I really think it might be something medical. Perhaps the locals have a way to treat it…”  
  
Hammond nodded again, “Granted. Bring back a solution, SG-1.”  
  
##  
  
Carter wasted no time. She rapidly assembled the team, including Doctor Frazier, checked over their preparations and advised the Doctor on what to bring and what might occur on the other side of the Gate. Within fifteen minutes, Carter had her team assembled in the Gate Room and the Star Gate was activated.  
  
After chevrons one through seven locked in place, the Star Gate belched a blue, swirling vortex of energy. As soon as it stabilized, Carter led the team through. As she felt the wormhole take her and fling her across the time/space continuum, she hoped she’d be wise enough to solve this puzzle. Daniel’s voice sounded in her ears, ‘Calliopeia Thou wise, Principal of the Muses delightful, Thou too, wise mystery guide, be propitious and stand by me.’  
  
Carter emerged into a sunny day on the large, gracious plaza. Pedestrians were visible here and there about the space and it was nothing like the scene from the previous morning. There was no music. Well, there was a snatch of a tune from somewhere, but it didn’t seem to present any threat. She checked her communication gear with Teal’c and Daniel. Working. After a glance at Doctor Frazier to make sure she’d come through without a problem, Carter squared her shoulders and surveyed the plaza. Several locals were standing, staring at them. One, the tallest one, wearing flowing gowns of a filmy material, “a woman,” Carter decided, approached.  
  
Carter led the team down the three steps from the Gate platform to plaza-level. The tall woman walked gracefully to them, stopped and executed a deep bow from the waist. “Like a yoga stretch,” Carter observed.  
  
“Kalim Era,” she said as she straightened to her full six-foot-six stature, “Ime o Celeste.”  
  
Carter bowed (from the neck) and said, “Thank you.”  
  
Daniel stepped in, bowing low, before someone was inadvertently offended by a mistake in protocol. Speaking Greek, he struggled to match her alien inflections, “We are from Earth. I understand you, but my friends do not. Can you understand me?”  
  
Celeste bowed her head slightly to indicate her understanding, so Daniel continued.  
  
“We have come through your Gate seeking knowledge. I am Daniel. My friends are Captain Carter, Doctor Frazier and Teal’c. Will you teach us of your people and your ways?”  
  
The tall woman smiled warmly, “I am Celeste and this is the home of the Antonines. You are welcome. I will teach if you will learn, all that is within my ability.” Celeste appraised the Team and proceeded, “You have come far and have much to ask, I see. Come.” She turned and escorted the Team across the sun-soaked plaza toward a building at the other end of the space.  
  
Inside, the air was cool. The walls were light. “Lumination or natural light?” Carter wondered. “Lighter near the top, probably a natural light source.”  
  
“Like a museum,” Daniel thought, “or a school.”  
  
“No apparent threat,” Teal’c decided.  
  
Doctor Frazier’s mind was still spinning from Gate travel and the sudden plunge into a thoroughly alien world. Her disorientation was somehow made worse by the sense that, somewhere, she’d seen this all before from a different perspective, like the feeling you get when you walk the halls of your former grade school.  
  
Celeste led SG-1 to a comfortable space that appeared to be a sort of herbarium. A fountain at the center splashed lightly, the green of the plants softened and tinted the stark white marble walls with patterns of shadow and reflected color. Bright cushions provided comfortable constellations of space for people to lounge with scrolls, apparently reading or writing, or gathering in small groups for discussions, or perhaps it was instruction. At a signal from Celeste the team settled onto four cushions in a sunny spot of the room. She gracefully settled on a cushion on a step that placed her slightly higher than the group before her.  
  
“Hmm,” Daniel noted, “Several other groups are in this same arrangement. Perhaps this is the form of instruction among the Antonines.” He was brought back to the moment when Celeste spoke.  
  
“Begin.”  
  
“What is this place?” Daniel asked. “This is our center of learning,” Celeste answered. Daniel rapidly translated her response and continued to act as interpreter, allowing the Team to communicate with Celeste through him.  
  
“What do you teach here?” asked Carter. “All things that are known and the inquiry into that which is not known,” Celeste replied.  
  
“Today your people teach and learn. Yesterday they sang and danced,” Teal’c said. “Why.”  
  
Celeste looked surprised, but not alarmed to Carter’s relief. “Today is a day for study and contemplation, yesterday was a day for inspiration.”  
  
“It looked like a very special day,” Carter probed. “Yes,” Celeste smiled. “It was our Amusement.”  
  
“Please tell us about Amusement,” said Doctor Frazier.  
  
“Amusement is a way for us to open the door to things unknown and … welcome them into our place in existence. We sing. We dance. We ornament ourselves and show our appreciation of beauty, harmony and elation for one day in twenty. It is a very special and important event.”  
  
Daniel takes a chance, “Because the Muse comes?”  
  
“Yes, to a few of Antonines the Gift of the Muse is given.”  
  
“What is the gift?” Frazier asked. “The Gift is an open door,” Celeste replied enigmatically.  
  
“What does that mean, exactly?” Daniel probed. Celeste paused for a moment of reflection, “The gift is different for each one Gifted. Like a door, each person must pass through in his or her own way to a better place, a place of more perfect understanding.”  
  
“A better place?” asked Daniel. “Yes, better, more clear. It is a great gift and a great responsibility,” Celeste solemnly explained.  
  
“Why a responsibility?” asked Carter. “The gift must be shared. Those who are not Gifted, learn and grow through the visions of those who have passed through the door.”  
  
“What if the gift is not shared?” Frazier asked quietly. This is the first question that has shocked Celeste.  
  
“Why would a Gifted not share the gift? Surely there is no benefit to withholding that which cannot be contained, the immeasurable, the infinite.”  
  
Frazier persisted, “But if a Gifted person were to try to withhold the gift. What would happen?”  
  
Celeste looks somber, “Pain, anguish, madness and death, I believe. According to our ancient scholars the Gift comes to us from the Muse. It is a gift to be cherished. To scorn it would be blasphemy. Such a Gifted would know the wrath of the Gods. Such strange questions these are. Why do you ask them?”  
  
Carter glanced around the group, receives a slight nod from Daniel and a more urgent look from Frazier. She speaks carefully. “Celeste, we ask because we need your help. Yesterday, during the Amusement we came through the Star Gate. We came to greet your people and establish friendship. We saw you dancing and heard your music. One of our friends was with us. Something happened to him. He… is different now.”  
  
Celeste looks deep into Carter’s eyes, “He is inspired?” Carter nods, “Yes, you could call it that. Since yesterday he has painted, read books on the Arts, learned to play the guitar and written poetry…”  
  
“This is the Gift. The Muse seeks out those to receive it during Amusement. Your friend has been Gifted. It is a wonderful thing. He must treasure it! Here, the Gifted spend their lives in celebration of the Muse, creating music and art. They celebrate the Muse in their writing or in architecture or the making of other useful things of beauty and internal harmony.”  
  
“Their lives,” Carter asked with the sudden vision of Jack O’Neill living out the rest of his days in an artists’ colony in San Francisco. “Samuels would love that,” she thought and then shuddered.  
  
Colonel “Sparky” Samuels had an axe to grind with SGC, and especially with Jack O’Neill. O’Neill was merciless to fools and Samuels was a fool of the first order of magnitude. If Jack were to try to separate from the military, with what he knew, to live an alternative lifestyle as an itinerant artist, the military would not allow it and Samuels would have his chance for revenge.  
  
Hammond would do what he could, but Carter had no doubt what-so-ever that somehow, somewhere, someone would get to O’Neill and … living as Celeste described was simply not an option. There had to be another solution.


	7. Chapter 7

  
  
It had been an amazing mission. The community of Antonines was among the most creative and well-ordered societies the SGC had encountered. The planet was beautiful, the climate temperate and the landscape lush and fertile with wilder areas visible a short distance from the village. If not for O’Neill’s predicament, Carter would have counted the visit to P3X531 as a potential blessing. There was a great deal the Antonines could offer Earth, including a sophisticated view of creativity and its role in government, science and society.  
  
Celeste was an obliging, no a delightful host. She reminded Daniel of Miss Pierce, his Fifth-Grade teacher. She had the same open mind and delighted in answering questions in a way that inspired the one who asked to think more deeply and, somehow, differently about the subject. He loved that about Miss Pierce and, by the end of their visit, he was a little more than half in love with Celeste, in a strictly Platonic way of course.  
  
They had toured the entire City and seen the Gifted and their work in honor of the Muse in all its many forms. There were statutes, pottery and other crafts, buildings and entire architectural areas devoted to the Muse. They attended three performances – two musical and one an interpretive dance and theatrical performance. The work was fantastic, even though Daniel was the only team-member who could follow the language. The Gifted worked industriously, were honored and praised for their creations and were clearly the leaders of the Antonine culture and maybe even its government.  
  
“Pretty impressive,” Carter thought as Celeste escorted them across the square. She almost envied O’Neill. What would it be like to be able to create such beauty, to transform the worldview of those around you? A little like her work in Physics, Carter supposed. Her gift was a small one by comparison, but she’d begun to realize that perhaps she didn’t need to pity O’Neill, just try to understand him and help him through that door to… no one knew.  
  
By the time they returned through the Gate, Doctor Frazier had a working hypothesis as to how to proceed with the Colonel. She would discover at the briefing that it was strangely consistent with the thoughts of Daniel Jackson and Captain Carter. The simple truth was that, as lovely as life was among the Gifted on P3X531, O’Neill wasn’t living there. He was at Cheyenne Mountain, the most deeply classified and restricted area of the U.S. military, and he was in big trouble.  
  
***  
  
The trouble had started soon after Carter had led SG-1 through the Star Gate. General Hammond had reluctantly dropped in on O’Neill. Hammond had heard soft guitar music coming from the Colonel’s quarters. The soft strumming was comforting, somehow, to the distressed General. He paused for a moment outside the door, put his aching head against the lintel and listened.  
  
“I never knew he had it in him,” Hammond thought. “All these years I’ve known Jack, I knew he was many things, but not this.” The music lifted his spirits and, as much as he hated to interrupt, Hammond knocked softly on the door.  
  
The music slid to an upbeat stop. “C’mon in,” called O’Neill. “Hey, General Hammond! Is there something I can do for you, Sir?” O’Neill seemed fine. In fact, he was relaxed and smiling, happier that Hammond had ever seen him.  
  
“Jack, I need to talk to you.” O’Neill hopped out of his chair and swung it toward the coffee table. “Sure, take a seat, General. What’s this all about?”  
  
“Is there anything you want to tell me, Colonel?” Hammond began, amazed that he’d been standing here for more than a minute without O’Neill querying him about SG-1, the status of the mission or his own status in the SGC. This was not normal. “No, Sir. I’ve been working on this piece. Was that what you wanted to talk to me about?”  
  
“Sort of Colonel. Jack, I’ve relieved you of duty for the time-being.” Hammond felt his face flush. Somehow he felt ashamed. O’Neill had been ‘changed’ in the line of duty. If he’d been shot, fallen off a cliff or suffered from battle fatigue O’Neill’s record would be clean and he would retain his rank and full privileges, including that of command as soon as he was deemed able. But… this was different.  
  
O’Neill sat very still, looking at Hammond keenly. “Relieved?”  
  
Hammond nodded feeling the flush again. “Yes Colonel. Jack, until we understand what has happened to you, I don’t know whether you’ve been compromised, whether you are fit… mentally or emotionally. You know the rigors of command better than anyone else I know. You can’t afford to be … distracted. It’s not fair to you or your people to allow you to continue as a field commander, if you aren’t up to it. People could get hurt. How would you live with that?”  
  
“Yes, Sir. Isn’t that pretty much the fate of every commander, General? One day we are injured; we make a mistake; we get old. We are replaced. I understand,” O’Neill said, examining the fingers of his left hand as he positioned them on the guitar frets.  
  
Hammond couldn’t believe his ears. O’Neill was 45-years old, aggressive and had, until now, been totally absorbed with his service to his country, the SGC and, specifically to SG-1. It rocked Hammond to realize that maybe O’Neill just didn’t care.  
  
“Are you going to be alright?”  
  
The General started as Jack broke into his thoughts. “I should be asking you that, Colonel,” and was astounded to see O’Neill smile and pick up the guitar.  
  
“Listen to this,” O’Neill said softly and began an intricate rhythm that became a soothing jazzy something and then transformed into a passionately sad pounding and strumming reminiscent of Fado music Hammond had heard in Lisbon years ago. He realized then that O’Neill actually was suffering, in fact as O’Neill played Hammond realized how deeply sorrowful his former I2C was at the loss of his command – his life. Rather than put it into words, he’d turned to this… Gift. The General leaned back in the chair, closed his eyes and listened as O’Neill improvised and he was strangely comforted.  
  
The spell was broken when an airman appeared at O’Neill’s door with word that the General had a telephone call from Washington.  
  
Hammond stood, feeling a cold knot in his gut. “God-dammit. This had better not be about O’Neill or there will be hell to pay!”  
  
He thought furiously. Hammond had long suspected that Colonel Samuels, no friend to SGC, Hammond or, especially O’Neill, had spies within the SGC. Samuels had worked there briefly before his underhanded nature and shoddy performance had caused Hammond to single him out for removal, at O’Neill’s suggestion. Unfortunately, like so many sycophants, Major Samuels had powerful friends. His ejection from the SCG had only been possible as a promotion to Colonel and posting in Washington, D.C. where he continued to be a pain-in-Hammond’s-ass whenever possible, more often than not in concert with the more intelligent, if equally unscrupulous, Harry Maybourne.  
  
The General quivered with rage as he imagined some low-level staffer, or civilian contractor, rushing home last evening, dialing the phone and filling Samuels in on all the juicy details of O’Neill’s misfortune.  
  
“It had better not be Samuels, by God, or I’ll have somebody’s guts for garters,” he raged. Then, realizing he was standing there glowering at the unfortunate airman, he ordered her to transfer the call to O’Neill’s quarters.  
  
Jack continued lightly fingering the guitar frets, working through some complex piece of fingering while they waited. Hammond was expecting the call, but jumped when the phone rang. O’Neill let him pick up.  
  
“General Hammond.” Hammond stood suddenly. O’Neill, watching from across the room didn’t like the look on his face or the sound of the next few words. “Yes Mr. President. Yes, Sir. I understand. Good-bye Sir.” Hammond hung up the telephone and stood for a moment contemplating what had just happened.  
  
Then he straightened his uniform with a sharp pull, looked Jack straight in the eye and said, “Come with me, Colonel, please.”  
  
***


	8. Chapter 8

  
  
As he followed Hammond down the narrow gray halls of the SGC, deep beneath Cheyenne Mountain, O’Neill wasn’t sure whether he was under arrest. It was pretty clear that General Hammond had received orders – from the very top it seemed – and was prepared to act accordingly. O’Neill was not surprised. More than once he had found himself at loggerheads with the General when they’d received orders that made no sense. The General had always done his duty and obeyed orders. Well, there was that one time long ago when Lieutenant Hammond hadn’t, but that was a long, long time ago.  
  
O’Neill considered his situation as the General escorted him… where? He didn’t know but expected it was to the brig for the time being and then probably a military transport to D.C. where he’d be turned over for … what? Nothing good, from the dour look on Hammond’s face.  
  
O’Neill’s training kicked in – threat assessment. What had happened to him? Deep inside, he felt the same person he’d always been – well, happier maybe. Yes, something had happened to him and he was different now, but not really, not deep down inside. So, he was still himself, only … It was like he had stepped through a door no one else could see and found himself with a new point of view, a point of view that appeared to be about forty-five degrees off from what everyone else perceived. What had changed really?  
  
“I’m the same guy,” O’Neill thought, “but I’m doing things differently. Two days ago, if Hammond had relieved me of command I’d have felt like my life was over. OK, it still feels like he kicked me in the guts, but…” This was going nowhere. “OK. Take a different slant on this,” O’Neill thought furiously. “What would I have done about it? Two days ago, I’d be arguing with him, explaining his error, fighting for my life, threatening to resign. Today, I played him a song. Hmm. That’s different. Really different! Why? What has changed?” O’Neill turned it over in his mind.  
  
“It feels like there is something new, inside,” he decided. “Whatever happens, I know it’s there and … no one can take it away. That’s the difference. Doc Frazier had called it an internal locus of control.” O’Neill smiled as he replayed her concerned questioning of him. Everyone was pussyfooting around this change.  
  
Hammond noticed O’Neill grinning and shuddered. He would have preferred to have Jack in his face, shouting and complaining – that would have been far preferable to this passive acceptance. He seemed untouched by the developments of the past half-hour. Hammond had never known a military man who could smile in the face of such circumstances and, for the nth time in the past 30 hours, he wondered if O’Neill had lost his mind.  
  
Hammond maneuvered O’Neill around the last turn in the hall and, to Jack’s profound astonishment, walked him into the Gate Room. Hammond turned quickly to face Jack. His eyes were wide and a bit wild. O’Neill hadn’t seen George like this since that time, years ago…  
  
“Colonel, it has been my extreme pleasure and honor to serve with you. I am hereby dismissing you from the service of a grateful nation.” Hammond snapped a formal military salute, to the astonishment of the airmen and technicians wandering around the Gate Room, and O’Neill’s as well. Suddenly, Hammond had grasped O’Neill by his shoulders. “Jack, you’ve been like a son to me. The call I got was ordering me to turn you over to Samuels for … study. I won’t do that Jack. I wouldn’t turn a complete stranger over to those people. And… we owe you far too much to allow that to happen. I’m sorry it has to be this way, but – Go – before they come for you, go. Pick a place and go there. I’ve got your back, Colonel.”  
  
O’Neill couldn’t believe his ears. “Go? Dismissed? What are you talking about, George?” He raged. “I’m not going anywhere. If Samuels and his cronies want to make something of this, bring ‘em on! You don’t really think I’d leave you to handle this and run!”  
  
O’Neill shook his head, anger turning to disbelief, “Geesh, a guy gets a little culture and all of a sudden people start treating him like a great big sissy!” O’Neill laughed and Hammond, partly from stress as well as embarrassment at his rash behavior, joined him. They were gasping -- weak-in-the-knees, bent-over – when Samuels marched into the Gate Room, flanked by another perennial trouble-maker, Colonel Maybourne. The duo walked primly up to Hammond and presented O’Neill’s new orders.  
  
“Colonel O’Neill, you are hereby ordered to come with me,” smirked Samuels.  
  
***  
  
Samuels had intended to simply whisk O’Neill from the SGC to D.C. and away from Hammond’s protective cover. The General -- although foiled in his foolhardy attempt to rescue O’Neill and then simply face the consequences -- was not beaten yet.  
  
Hammond stood nose-to-nose with Samuels and Maybourne and directly ordered them to conduct their “tests”, whatever they were, here at the SGC. Hammond had been well-prepared for this contest of wills by past attempts by Samuels and his ilk to remove aliens rescued from other planets, and even SGC personnel. Hammond used every trick and ploy ever placed at his disposal by his talented military staff, and then he invented several spur-of-the-moment gambits of his own. In the end, he forced Samuels and Maybourne to accept the hospitality of the SGC. They took over several unused sections of the facility, located near the Infirmary, rooms that had been outfitted for mass casualty treatment, in case the need ever arose.  
  
O’Neill was not happy to see Samuels. He was even less pleased when Samuels’s people had placed him in a stark isolation cell, strapped to a metal gurney. But, lying there, staring at the ceiling, waiting, O’Neill smiled. He was still tickled and deeply touched by the General’s desperate attempt to shuffle him off to the Nox, or the First Ones, or wherever he’d chosen to go. “When you’re in the deep and muddy” O’Neill reflected, “Hammond’s a good man to take your back.”  
  
***  
  
As O’Neill lied there, Samuels’ medical staff poured over the records made by Doctor Frazier and others over the past 34-hours. They noted the lack of sleep and the burst of creative energy, devised a hypothesis and started arranging a series of examinations and tests to determine precisely how O’Neill’s brain was functioning and, then -- should he survive the tests -- physiological, cellular and sub-cellular research that would allow comparison of O’Neill’s brain and nervous system to that of other geniuses -- Einstein, and the like – whose brains had been preserved in anticipation of a day like this, when military intelligence finally got hold of a real live creative genius, live at least for the time being.  
  
By the time SG-1 returned through the Gate, Samuels was feeling very frustrated. O’Neill had blown off most of the tests, preferring to surreptitiously scribble pencil sketches on the backs of the exams or, when threatened, to play connect the dots with the multiple-choice answer pad or use the answer sheets to spell out insults or crude limericks.  
  
However, the Muse occasionally visits even the most mean-spirited and Samuels had suddenly been inspired. He met with his staff and directed them to take a new approach. Rather than allowing O’Neill freedom of expression, why not conduct tests on his resiliency to absence of stimuli. There was a robust body of military research into this area as a result of its potential for brainwashing and increasing suggestibility in prisoners-of-war. Samuels smiled at the irony of it. That knuckle-scraping Neanderthal O’Neill suddenly finding himself with a gift, of all people. Then, Samuels finding, almost as quickly, that the gift offered a means to finally humble that arrogant son-of-a-bitch... and a path to so much more.  
  
“And, it’s working,” he thought, listening to muffled screams coming out of the isolation chamber. “It’s working just as I hoped. I’ll take out O’Neill and then use his destruction as a means to undermine Hammond. Losing a national hero, under Hammond’s authority, in Hammond’s own facility! Such irony.” With the General out of the way, the SGC would be open for Samuels to make his next move – another promotion, this time to General and Commander of the Star Gate Program at Cheyenne Mountain.  
  
The first fifteen hours had not been too bad. Typically subjects undergo Restricted Environmental Stimulation Therapy (REST) sessions from twelve to twenty-four hours for therapeutic treatment of behavioral disorders including drug addiction, alcoholism and nicotine addiction. It had also seen some success in treatment of other obsessive diseases. But the session had gone way past therapeutic levels.  
  
O’Neill had felt the first real rush of panic after thirty hours. That had been late yesterday. Of course, within the narrow metal cocoon that kept him isolated from light and sound at the precise temperature of his own body, O’Neill had no way to know when it had started, how long ago, or when it would end. Without references to guide his starving nervous system, he was only aware of a moment that stretched to infinity. Panic swept over him and crashed back again. He was trapped in … nothing. To fill the void, he screamed, and screamed, and kept screaming, but heard no sound.  
***  
  
Hammond had searched desperately for the next step in countering Samuels. Twenty minutes after SG-1 stepped back through the Gate from P3X531, he’d huddled with them to gain any possible insight into O’Neill’s condition and the possible solution of the problem. Unfortunately, there didn’t seem to be a solution.  
  
“The problem is, General,” Carter repeated, “that the Antonines worship creativity and honor their artists. When someone receives the gift Colonel O’Neill has received they don’t cure it. They celebrate and spend their lives in pursuit of creativity, teaching others and improving their society. If I had been given the chance, I would have recommended sending Colonel O’Neill there as a… sort of ambassador.” Frazier smiled, “I was thinking the same thing,” and glanced at Daniel, who simply nodded.  
  
“He would not have gone,” Teal’c stated grimly. “O’Neill is a warrior.”  
  
Hammond shook his head; “I should have ordered him there, under guard if necessary. God knows what Samuels is doing.”  
  
“Perhaps I can shed some light on that question, General,” offered Doctor Frazier. “My staff is pretty sharp. I pulled them together as soon as I returned to learn what’s happening here. From what they could tell me, Samuels started with standard psychological testing and then, when Colonel O’Neill wouldn't cooperate, proceeded with extreme techniques, including REST.”  
  
“What is that Doctor?” Hammond asked. He was tired and it sounded like a good thing.  
  
“REST is Restricted Environmental Stimulation Therapy, General. In short sessions it is useful for stress relief and in longer sessions for treatment of behavioral disorders, including addiction,” Frazier explained.  
  
Carter noticed some reticence in Doctor Frazier’s explanation, “But in longer sessions?”  
  
“Longer sessions could be … well a form of torture. Especially in Colonel O’Neill’s state of hyper-creativity, an environment where there is no stimulation could destroy his mind,” Frazier stated with a clinical coolness she didn’t feel.  
  
Carter spoke again. “What is a therapeutic session?”  
  
“Anywhere from twelve to twenty-four hours,” the Doctor answered.  
  
“And when did they start?”  
  
“I estimate it was about forty hours ago,” Frazier said simply.  
  
“That’s it,” Hammond snapped. “Teal’c get your staff weapon and organize Makepeace and his Marines, please. We are going in there and damned the consequences.”  
  
Frazier placed a hand on the General’s arm. “Wait, hear me out, please, General. I have an idea.”  
  
***  
  
The Star Gate Program had not often encountered dangerous life forms, although it had had a few near-disasters involving nannites, plagues and other microscopic threats. One of the dutifully recorded and little noted forms of life that had been encountered was a microbe that caused a rapid-onset course of flu-like symptoms. It caused dizziness, nausea, intestinal distress and extreme muscle pain and fatigue. The unfortunate members of SG-11 had first encountered it, returned through the Gate and promptly infected the entire facility. Fortunately, like the measles, mumps and chickenpox, once contracted humans were, thereafter, immune to the nasty little bug.  
  
Doctor Frazier had been working with that particular strain of microbe because she’d been very impressed with the speed with which it had moved through the facility. Also, she was concerned that it had evaded the standard protocols for detecting harmful vectors, such as this one. She’d recently completed growing one thousand culture plates, small glass containers of agar inoculated with the germ. She had planned to use the cultured microbe in a series of controlled experiments to learn precisely how it moves and why it had been undetectable by the SGC biosensors.  
  
As she sat in the briefing concerning Colonel Samuels, it occurred to her that Samuels had never been exposed to this particular disease. It was likely that none of his people had been either. And she had so much of it in the Infirmary, just down the hall from Samuels and his staff… and O’Neill.  
  
“General, remember when SG-11 returned with that flu-like disease from P1X999?” she began.  
  
“Yes, I could hardly forget it Doctor. We were all flat on our backs here for a day and a half. If it hadn’t been self-limiting and of such a short duration, I’d have declared ‘Situation Wildfire.’ Why?”  
  
Frazier said nothing. She simply looked at Hammond, smiling slightly and raising her brows… significantly.  
  
“Oh!” Hammond caught on, “Doctor have you been working with that material?”  
  
“Yes General, I have been,” Frazier answered meekly.  
  
“And do you have something to report?” he continued, playing his assigned part.  
  
“Yes, General. I regret to inform you that there was an accident in the Infirmary. Some of the material was inadvertently released into the air circulation system. I strongly recommend we flush the system, General. Since we have all been exposed to the microbe there should be no ill effects. But, you might want to order new arrivals under your direct authority off base for the next week, or so.”  
  
Hammond is smiling and nodding. “Right, consider it done. And, you may begin your ‘clean up’ within 45-minutes. That should allow enough time to remove SGC personnel. And, thank you for your honesty in reporting this error, Doctor.”  
  
***  
  
Samuels was enjoying a hearty dinner when he noticed a certain ache in his back. “Working too hard,” he thought, “but that’s the cost of success.” As he tackled his steak, he noticed a funny taste in his mouth and wondered whether someone had been fooling with his food. “No, they wouldn’t dare!”  
  
He dismissed the idea and turned to reading the reports coming in on O’Neill. “Hmm, blood pressure changes, brain activity spikes dropping, respiration was all over the board for the first day or so and then settled into a much lower, slower state. Very interesting.”  
  
Samuels rubbed his eyes. “When this is over I think I’d better take a vacation,” he thought. “I’m more tired than I thought. He took another bite of steak, chewed and felt… bad, all of a sudden.  
  
The meat suddenly tasted like a wad of wet paper towel in his mouth. He spat it out and stood to rinse his mouth when his gut twisted wildly. “My God, they’ve poisoned me!” he thought as he reached for the phone to call his chief medical officer on the research team.  
  
As the phone rang, he began to sweat and felt a chill and the need to retch. “Pick up, pick up,” he ordered. But there was no one in the Chief Medical Officer’s office. She was kneeling by the toilet in her quarters down the hall, wishing she were dead and fearing that she might soon be.  
  
Doctor Frazier knew this bug … intimately. More intimately than she cared to recall, since she’d just released it into the air ducts feeding into the area controlled by Samuels and his crew. Her oath had been “Physician, first do no harm.” But, in this case she was willing to justify the infliction of temporary, if acute, discomfort on a handful of people to save a life, especially the life of a dear friend.  
  
Besides, many of the people responsible for Jack had also taken an oath. They didn’t seem to remember that fact, while torturing O’Neill. “Well, they’ll remember this, anyway,” Frazier thought coldly. She glanced at her watch and calculated the likely progress of the microbe through the human bodies she’d infected. “Now’s the moment,” she told herself cheerily and strolled down the hall to pay a visit on Colonel Samuels.  
  
Frazier knocked politely on Samuels’ door. “Colonel, it’s Doctor Frazier, may I have a moment, Sir? Colonel?” She could hear a moaning sound from under the door and suppressed a smile. “Sir, are you alright?”  
  
Frazier walked in, demurely, and knelt next to the prostrate form on the bathroom floor. Samuels looked terrible. “Wonderful,” she thought with glee as she reached for the phone and declared a medical emergency. Soon, she would be able to reclaim O’Neill and immediately after that, Samuels would be under her care.  
  
Frazier walked eagerly back toward the Infirmary, met Hammond and SG-1 coming the other way and officially informed the General that an undetermined number of staff were ‘down’ with an ‘unknown’ illness. She recommended biohazard protection and continued to the Infirmary to mobilize her people. “Those mass casualty rooms might come in handy, at last,” she thought with a clinical coldness of a trained physician.  
  
***  
  
Teal’c led SG-1 into the bowels of Samuels’s facility. He was eager for resistance, hopeful that at least one of these … “what was O’Neill’s word for it? Geeks! If just one of these geeks resist, I shall take them apart.” Teal’c was disappointed to see they were all down or staggering out of his way as he jogged through the halls, looking for O’Neill. Doctor Frazier had explained they would find a silver coffin-like structure, “much like a sarcophagus,” Teal’c had reasoned. Within, he hoped to find his friend alive and well. But, if not, these geeks would know what it means to anger a warrior!  
  
Carter found the silver shell and called out. “Over here! I got him!” She was working to release a series of clamps that held the long metal case together like an elongated shell of a large mussel. Daniel and Teal’c lent a hand and quickly loosed the cover. With Hammond’s help they removed it and found O’Neill within.  
  
O’Neill seemed dazed, but alive. He moved his head, glancing from face to face. His mouth moved. Teal’c realized he was holding his breath. “Morning campers!” O’Neill said softly “Who’s ready for a little hike?”  
  
Before Teal’c could swing O’Neill onto his shoulders and haul him to the Infirmary, Frazier arrived. She gently stopped him and asked him to help place the Colonel onto a gurney, instead. O’Neil seemed tired and disoriented. “His voice is strangely soft, like he has laryngitis,” Frazier mused as she wheeled the gurney to the Infirmary. “Let’s hope a sore throat is the worst of it.”  
  
Approximately three hours later, Doctor Frazier had completed her preliminary assessment of Jack O’Neill’s condition and also managed to deal with the fifty-or-so staff that had succumbed to the microbe from P1X999. That was lucky, because just as she finished, General Hammond walked in and demanded her report.  
  
“How is he, Doctor? Don’t spare any details. I want a full report on what has been done, the effects and his chances for recovery. Samuels is going to wish he’d never been born when I get through with him!”  
  
SG-1 stood mute behind the General.  
  
Frazier paused, every eye was on her, “General, brace yourself. Colonel O’Neill seems to be… fine. Colonel Samuels’s staff did subject him to some bizarre tests. I am able to substantiate that he underwent … torture for lack of a better word and I will attest to that fact. But, the Colonel is fine! Aside from a sore throat – caused no doubt by screaming for several hours -- and fatigue, and bruising from fighting his restraints, he’s alert. He knows who he is, who I am and where we are, as well as what has happened. He is not showing any of the signs of psychosis that I would have expected from such a prolonged session of sensory deprivation.”  
  
“And, here’s the good news, General! He’s been pestering me about SG-1, the results of the mission, how soon he can undergo evaluation and re-take command of the unit. Frankly, General, Samuels may have inadvertently done Colonel O’Neill a favor! Remember, I told you that Restricted Environmental Stimulation Therapy is used in cases of obsession and addictive behavior? Well, don’t hold me to this but, just maybe, it could have undone whatever caused Colonel O’Neill’s sudden onset of creativity.”  
  
Relief and frustration chased across Hammond’s face. Relief to hear that O’Neill was unharmed, might even be competent to return to command, and was eager to do so!  
  
“Sounds like the Colonel Jack O’Neill I’m used to having around,” Hammond muttered with relieved pleasure.  
  
Frustration tinged the good news, however, because General George Hammond fully intended to have Samuels stripped of his rank and imprisoned, if not out-right shot. He needed ammunition to do that. If O’Neill had so much as a scratch, Hammond could do it. Well, the next few days would tell.  
  
General Hammond almost forgot to feel frustrated at the joy of seeing SG-1 fall back into step. O’Neill checked out. His skill with brush and paint and unnerving tendency to spout poetry had ceased as abruptly as they began. He was prompt at briefings; he was on guard in the field and as acute a leader as he’d ever been. Hammond noticed slightly less sarcasm than usual, but Doctor Frazier had explained that sensory deprivation, in small doses, was a treatment for stress. Realizing that O’Neill’s snide remarks generally reflected the stress of command, Hammond marked the change as the only lingering effect of his ordeal.  
***  
  
It was not generally known among SGC personnel that George Hammond enjoyed a fine glass of Kentucky Bourbon and that he occasionally shared this pleasure with Jack O’Neill. Typically, the General would drop by after dinner for conversation about the command and a glass of the Colonel’s fine sipping whiskey.  
  
Tonight Hammond felt the need, partly to apologize for removing O’Neill from command, or at least to make sure there were no hard feelings. He strolled toward O’Neill’s quarters allowing relief to creep into his mind. Somehow things had turned out all right. He would enjoy the next few weeks as he destroyed Samuels’s career and ran down the last contacts he had within the SGC. Yes, he would enjoy that a great deal.  
  
As Hammond turned the last corner toward O’Neill’s quarters, he froze. His heart pounded and the pit of his stomach clenched. The gentle sound of a guitar, expertly played, floated softly from under O’Neill’s door. Hammond forced himself to knock. The music stopped. “C’mon in,” O’Neill called. Hammond swung the door open. There sat Jack O’Neill with a guitar across his knees and a mischievous grin on his face.  
  
“Care to hear my latest variations on Leo Kottke, George?”  



End file.
